The Vedas of India are known to be the oldest existing literature in the world. Literature has a value proposition to it as against the language of the street. How much of the Vedic language was used in daily transactions is a matter of speculation. A parallel language called Prakrit apparently flourished. The origin of Vedic language remains unsolved because no systematic effort has happened through the Indian scholars. For convenience, some religious people have pronounced that "The vedas are eternal" etc. They ascribe a "divine origin" the latter phrase being subject to interpretation. While we must reject ideas of divine origin, the Vedas have taken hold of Indian belief system as the "bible". Religious dogmatism generates rancor and there is strong division between the eastern the western scholars on the interpretation. The western scholars think the Vedas as a text and and analyze them literally. The eastern scholars think that the Vedas are the revelations and assume a metaphorical mode of thought. Young scholars in modern India must jump in to clarify the scene. Multi-disciplinary research by bright minds is required. A grammarian named Panini created the first known grammatical text analyzing the constructs in the Vedas. He also took examples from the language of the people. This is speculated to be done about 500BC. Panini created a comprehensive methodical framework for the language. He laid the foundations of the modern day Sanskrit. The beauty was that the language structure supported communication and expression with lyrical diction and a fair amount of precision. Some of the structures could be further refined to add extra precision, but Panini left it the way people used. This version called "classical Sanskrit" has remained unchanged since Panini's time. Until about 1000AD India was blooming with ideas, technology, literature, poetry and philosophy. The richness of the development is ascribed to the Sanskrit language as prescribed by Panini. Ideas did develop through the daily living of the masses, and ideas did come by through interactions. Sanskrit became a tool of delivery of ideas. Indian literary compositions of the first millenium AD maintain an excellence unparalleled anywhere in the world.
I was told about the old India's literature by my maternal grandfather late Sri Ratnakar Kar and my trip to Bangkok is a tribute to his memory. During my upanayana ceremony, I was advised by my paternal grandfather late Sri Nilakantha Misra to upkeep the Indian traditions. Traditions are only understood if one stays with a group that follows the traditions. In the modern day world, we have a trajectory away from the traditions. We have to reduce the traditions to values through our own discovery. This process is new and we do not have any precedence. All need to examine and explore a set of values that might work in the modern day society and still address the traditional norms and protocols. India is passing through an experimental period in her history.